A look at “the flattening”: tech companies laying off middle managers to boost efficiency and cut costs after hiring them in droves during the pandemic boom
Moves to carve out a layer of staff aim to speed up decisions but could leave a talent gap Tweets: @michelezanini , @adsinuk , @andre_spicer , @andrewtghill , and @patrickmcgee_ Tweets: Michele Zanini / @michelezanini : The idea that middle management's value add is “passing on the concerns of the many to the ears of the few” made some sense 50 years ago, when information was expensive to obtain and hard to move, but is highly questionable these days. h/t @andrewtghill https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/... Aarish Shah / @adsinuk : I've always loathed the term middle management. It speaks of mediocrity and a swathe of people who often though not always have failed upwards. ‘The flattening’: tech sector calls time on middle managers - https://www.ft.com/... via @FT @andre_spicer : When everyone wants to be a leader you get an increasingly large middle management cadre. Interesting account of how bureaucracy increased at Meta and attempts to ‘flatten’ https://www.ft.com/... via @FT Andrew Hill / @andrewtghill : “The manager's role should be to drive high performance as a leader, rather than an addendum on their everyday job as part of getting a promotion” - fascinating from @MsHannahMurphy on the sweeping out of middle management in Silicon Valley https://www.ft.com/... Patrick McGee / @patrickmcgee_ : “Middle managers working from home were keen to demonstrate they were still valuable, resulting in them attending as many virtual meetings as possible ... There were “too many people on too many calls” in phenomenon known as “digital presenteeism”. https://enterprise-sharing.ft.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The pandemic-era expansion of tech organizations created the management layers now under review. At Meta, the pattern had already become explicit when managers and directors were asked to move into individual-contributor roles or leave in a push to flatten the organization.
This story places those moves in a wider cost-and-decision-speed agenda. Reports of deteriorating morale around Meta’s efficiency drive show that organizational simplification carries a workforce cost even when it is framed as operational discipline. Employee concerns about that drive make the trade-off material.
First-order effects
- Middle managers hired during the pandemic boom face layoffs or reassignment as companies remove a layer of supervision to cut payroll costs.
- Remaining teams receive broader decision-making responsibility, while senior leaders gain shorter reporting chains; firms also risk losing managers who carry operational knowledge and develop future leaders.
Second-order effects
- Companies pursuing similar efficiency programs face pressure to show that flatter structures improve execution rather than merely reduce headcount; the earlier Meta restructuring provides a visible reference point.
- The market for experienced managers may weaken relative to individual-contributor roles, while surviving managers take on wider spans of control and more coordination work.
Third-order effects
- If sustained, flattening could reset tech’s organizational model toward fewer management layers and more directly accountable product and engineering teams, consistent with a broader strategic-institution transition.
- The limiting factor will be whether companies can preserve coaching, succession, and cross-team coordination after cuts; a recurring talent gap would constrain the cost-saving model.
The trend: Tech is shifting from pandemic-era organizational scaling to leaner operating models that test how much management can be removed without degrading execution.